Dot Weekly

The single letter domain name G.me was reserved by the .me registry for several years but a recent change in whois has me thinking that a new owner is in the works! G.me moved from the .me registry to a generic whois contact information for brand protection company MarkMonitor. Google Inc. just so happens to

Back in March of this year, Google changed some things up and changed names of it "marketplace" for apps, games and music from Android Market to Google Play. One thing missing with the name change was the matching domain name GooglePlay.com as it was owned by somebody else already. Google filed a compliant with the

Major League Baseball has acquired the generic domain name Athletics.com according to whois records for an undisclosed sum. The "official site" of the Oakland Athletics resides at http://oakland.athletics.mlb.com/index.jsp?c_id=oak&sv=1 but it will be easier to visit the site directly, as MLB almost always does a redirect of the basebal...

Apple Inc. has successfully obtained the iPhone5.com domain name through a WIPO claim they recently filed. The domain name is now registered under the brand protection company Corporation Service Company, which is a domain name registrar Apple has been using lately. I would expect the whois data to update to Apple Inc. shortly. It is

I have been taking a break lately and I'm still not sure if I will continue writing as much as I did but I will see. Anyway, Andrew over at DNW.com reported on May 2, 2012 that the domain name GoFurther.com had sold for $10,000 at Sedo to a Mark Monitor client…. well, that client

Farmville lovers may get a old, new game to play pretty soon! Farmville 2 According to some recent changes with the domain name Farmville2.com, it would appear that Zynga is getting its ducks in a row to launch a second series of its super popular game Farmville. Farmville2.com was not owned by Zynga and was

New Orleans Saints have named assistant coach Joe Vitt as the new interim head coach according to NFL.com and it just so happens that the domain name Vitt.com (his surname) is currently an expired domain name auction taking place! The no reserve auction ends on April 14, 2012 at about 4:22 pm Central Standard Time

After continued success of selling a gator to some French guy and gaining fast fame with the gang, DomainGang has eaten back his pray and purchased Domaining.com In the surprise twist nobody saw coming, the self portrait of "Mr. DG" is the only thing you will find upon visiting the once beloved Domaining.com! 100% not

Based on whois records, the domain name 999.com has been sold via Sedo.com. I haven't seen a published purchase price but if it was a public sale, I would expect it to be published by Sedo. The domain name is still in the transfer process so the new owner is not currently known. The average

It has been awhile since I did any GoDaddy Goodies lists, so I thought I would do a little digging for you and share a special list for you. Here are 433 expired domain name auctions that are currently taking place at GoDaddy Auctions. Each domain name in this list are: Two Word .com 1

Expired domain name auctions that end on 4/4/2012 at GoDaddy Auctions seemed to be missing some inventory, so I sent a quick message to Paul Nicks of GoDaddy to see what was up. This wasn't the first time I had noticed inventory missing for a day from the site and or via FTP, so I

It has been awhile since I did a DotWeeekly Discoveries so I thought I would share one today. DotWeekly Discoveries is simply a list of random domain names that larger companies have recently acquired or purchased in the domain name aftermarket. Here we go: NBA started grabbing some generic terms relating to team apparel with

I saw a TV commercial for a "free home phone" service called Ooma.com this weekend and decided to head on over to the website this morning to see what it was all about. The problem? Their website doesn't resolve (work) for those who do not include www. with the domain name when entering it into

Several very nice "cloud" related domain names have expired lately that are registered at GoDaddy and have went to GoDaddy.com Auctions with one of those domains being CloudServers.com which was purchased for $32,010. Whois data has changed after the 5-7 day waiting period after the auction ended but doesn't clearly indicate that Salesforce...

Google Inc. secretly registered two domain names on 2/29/2012, FiveInTheCloud.com and 5InTheCloud.com with domain registrar MarkMonitor. Fast forward to 3/23/2012 and Google has launched a website on the domains! (5InTheCloud.com actually resolves to a 404 page, which is pretty funny considering! Failed redirect is my guess to FiveInTheCloud.com) T...

Back in September 2011 I had broke the news that Box.net had purchased the domain name Box.com . At the time I wasn't able to dig up a sales price, but now a cNet.com article posted today has revealed the price, kind of! The money talk from the cNet article: "How many zeros?" I asked.

Premium domain name Code.com has likely just sold! Based on some digging by myself and with the help of DomainTools.com whois history, I think the domain sold! Code.com switched to whois privacy on March 14, 2012 and also changed domain name registrars. How much and who is the buyer? These things are very hard to

It makes things a lot harder to sell a domain name when a website has problems. To make it worse, you inform the company of the problem and they haven't fixed it for months!!! If you use Afternic.com to sell your domain names, you should read this as I will explain the problem. Direct Linking

It has been pretty common for Apple Inc. to register some new domain names the day of a product launch and the New iPad launch was no different! Apple didn't go on as big of a domain shopping spree as they did when they launched iCloud during WWDC in 2011 when they registered 50 new

Mega credit card company Visa® secretly acquired the single letter domain name V.me from the registry (likely through the .me Development Program) around October 2011 but whois records remained behind the generic DnStinations Inc. which is used by brand protection company MarkMonitor. Late yesterday, Visa figured it was time to reveal they acq...

Google chopped the "Android Market" name and has officially launched "Google Play". You can read more about the name change on Google's Official Blog but we are here to talk about domains! First, Google does NOT currently own the domain name GooglePlay.com . According to whois records, Kristoffer Kullengren of Japan is the current o...

Google has been putting focus on getting businesses online and is using a lot of domain names to help in its effort. The latest is GYBO.com, a domain name they recently acquired from its past owner for an undisclosed amount. Back around July 2011, Google Inc. started buying domain names related to "Get Online" and

Moniker is sending one of its own into the domain name auction pool and is giving a shot to others to own the domain name Others.com! The Others.com auction will start tomorrow, so if you want in on the action, I'd suggest placing your backorder today. Why would Moniker be offering Others.com for sale? Hard

Google registers a lot of domain names and it seems like they use "some" of them overtime and others not at all. Google isn't one to just buy a domain for fun though and often times they go big when they buy. With that in mind, why did they register GoogleShowy.com on 2/27/2012? They do

First the Costa Concordia cruise ship sinks after is ran a ground. Then the Costa Allegra catches fire in the engine room and the cruise ship lost power in the Indian Ocean and is now being towed in. So what does the Costa Cruise line do when they have a ship at sea with over

Here is a How To article on how to obtain the full list of domain names on auction at GoDaddy Auctions® GoDaddy lists its domain names via FTP but you can access the lists on the web without using an FTP program. Step 1 Visit: ftp://ftp.godaddy.com (You can also access the files directly on the

Here is a graphic that will catch your eye! Sedo.com is reporting via its domain name sales RSS feed that the two letter domain name JP.com has been sold for $1,100 USD? What? The domain names whois data has not changed since June 16, 2011 when it changed to JP.com & Co, so even though

Danica Patrick is sponsored by the largest domain name registrar in the world, GoDaddy.com. So I wanted to see if "domains" were a perk of the sponsorship? The easy answer is not likely but it may appear some guidance likely happens from time to time. Here are some domain names that I was able to

Based on a small study I did yesterday using .com domain names that were released from the registry (PendingDelete 2/20/2012) and registered from the time of the drop, until about 6PM. 51,326 .com domains dropped 4,190 domains were reregistered 954 by HugeDomains Nearly 1/4 of the domains were registered by one company! HugeDomains.com Registrar ow...

I know several people have asked for some videos of me using the ZipZing dictionary based domain name filter software that I offer, so I took a little time this morning and have created a couple videos of it! I hope these videos help you and they also give you an insiders look as to

Here is an interesting domain name price battle with ads that I saw this morning doing a domain name type search on Google Register.com leads the "Low Price" battle offering $2 domains GoDaddy.com is next in line offering $2.95 domains Domain.com follows with $3.00 domains NetworkSolutions.com rounds out the bunch at $4.95 Those were the...

Zynga announced yesterday that they partnered with a company called Slingo and have licensed with them to launch Zynga Slingo. The game will be on Facebook and is a cross between bingo and slots. The day that the announcement was made, Zynga privately registered the following domain names: ZyngaSlingo.com ZyngaSlingo2.com ZyngaSlingoPlus.com U...

Here is a classic plural / singular domain name problem! Cenex® is doing a nice thing and offering a free tank of gas to people based on submissions from others who think they could use some free gas. Pretty cool idea! According to whois records, Cenex hired the company "Colle & McVoy" to do the

Several months ago I launched ZipZing.com, which is a Windows® software that I had created for personal use and then I decided that so many others could use it to save a lot of time, I offered it to the public. I only allowed it to be for sale for one day and then removed

Based on several new domain name registrations by Rubbermaid® it appears they will be launching a new "Clean And Dry Plunger" in the near future but things have went down the toilet with the domains they didn't register! Rubbermaid registered the following domains yesterday: buyclean-and-dry.com buyclean-and-dryplunger.com buyclean-n-d...

Zearn.com is moving out of beta and is soft launching! What is Zearn.com? Zearn is a free service that allows you to watch, find and bid on expired domain names that are on auction at GoDaddy Auctions®! Did I mention that Zearn is FREE!!! The bread and butter of Zearn is the live domain auction

Rewards.com has been sold at Sedo.com. I happened to simply discover this because the domain name went into transfer at Sedo, so I wasn't able to dig up a sales price. I'm sure it was a fair amount. Who are the new owners? Hard to say as they simply put "rewards.com" as the owners and

Companies often use unique domain names when advertising special events, promotions and for many more reasons… but don't just kill the domain name when you think you are done with it! Domain names can live on long after you think you are done with them. Traffic! Print doesn't just go away Links on the internet

I have been covering domain names used in Super Bowl commercials since 2009 and I did so again this year. I like doing these types of articles, because it's history and nice to be able to look back. Here are past articles if you wish to look back: 2009 Super Bowl Commercials Domain Wise |

GoDaddy.com is prepping for the big game today and has already changed its home page hours before the Super Bowl® is ready to air. The main focus on the home page is for the two Super Bowl commercials they are running with a large video box and they also added GoDaddy Girl® Jillian Michaels alongside

Papa Johns® pizza company is making a huge marketing push with the 2012 Super Bowl and is the official pizza sponsor of the game! The problem for them… they are not sure if they are sponsoring Super Bowl XLV or XLVI Right under the XLVI logo in the upper right hand corner, it states: Official

SmorePages.com is likely a website you have not heard of but they just did a domain name upgrade and dropped the "pages" from their domain name and have converted to simply Smore.com . Smore Pages purchased the domain name Smore.com at Sedo.com for $21,000 EUR, which converts to about $27K USD. I checked out Smore

I had broke the story that Box.com had been acquired in late September 2011 and the domain name was purchased by the rapidly growing company Box.net. Fast forward to December 22, 2011 and I had announced that Box.net was officially changing its "name" to simply "Box" but also changing its main domain name from Box.net

Time Warner Cable® is getting ready for the big game on Sunday, by getting the matching domain name to the marketing message they will be having during the Superbowl ads. Enjoy Better! But will Dish Network get "free" business from the Superbowl ad Time Warner is going to run? Well, first….TWC obtained EnjoyBetter.com from Sonnev...

ICE has seized hundreds more domain names prior to the 2012 Super Bowl. 307 "websites" were seized in this latest round, with 16 sites being "streaming" sites. The remaining sites were selling counterfeit merchandise. You can read more about the details of the bust on NetworkWorld.com but I will focus on the domain names! First...

Here is a little tip and trick that I use for different services to get a "behind the scenes" look at domain name transactions. Today I will talk about the process I use to monitor domain names that are selling at Sedo.com before many people even know about them selling! What you will need A

Well, the title says it all! This article is going to be about domain names, just a little bit of different things floating around in my head that I didn't want to write about in single articles. Juice.com which is owned by Marksmen (or may be brokered by them, but I'm not sure why whois

Back in November 2011 I shared a very interesting story about turning an $800 offer into a $20,000 domain name sale. The domain name in the story was BattleForEverything.com. At the time when I was helping Ryan out, I had fully thought that NBC was the interested party in the domain name, because they registered

13 year old domain name ExpiredDomains.com has, well expired and is on public domain auction! View Auction Expired domains are some of the most popular for domain name investors, so clearly this domain has some major potential. According to some data provided with the expired domain auction, the domain already has some built in traffic

If you were to do a search on Google.com for google keyword tool, which is a pretty popular search term… I was pretty surprised to see two domain names that contain the trademarked word "google" and they rank in the top 5 for the search term! GoogleKeywordTool.com ranks in the natural #3 position. IMO, the